


Carry Each Other

by Sholio



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Episode Tag, Families of Choice, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 02:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12546572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: "I'm not strong always," she said. "We can take turns."





	Carry Each Other

Hopper managed to make it all the way to the top of the elevator, holding El, before the last few days -- those hours in the spore tunnels, those hours and hours more of running on adrenaline and no food and no sleep -- caught up with him, and he folded slowly to the floor of the facility, only dimly aware of El's hands clutching at him, trying to catch him. Her desperate voice, saying his name.

"I ..." he whispered.

He wanted to sleep. Needed to sleep. But she'd just ... God. She'd just closed an interdimensional portal, and she was thirteen, and _she_ hadn't passed out.

He made himself open his eyes and focus on her desperate gaze staring down at him.

"'sokay," he whispered. Flaming whorls trailed around her head, the last remnants of the spores that had nearly inundated the town. "It's ... I'm ... I'll be along in a minute. Go get out of here. Call ..." And here his imagination failed him. Call _whom?_ Joyce was the only one he dared trust with her ...

"Get up," she whispered tearfully.

"Don't worry. You're ..."

_Better off without me._ The words came unbidden, floating up to the back of his mind. Let her just get out of here. Let her find Owens, who seemed like a pretty decent sort, the kind who had enough pull to get her things Hopper couldn't.

Let her go.

Leave him here to burn with the remnants of the portal and its unholy spawn.

"Get up," she whispered, and pressed her face into his shoulder. It shook him out of his stupor enough to put an arm around her from pure base instinct, pulling her closer to him. She was here, she was safe, after not knowing where she was, or how ...

Not knowing how she could possibly survive what she had to do.

But here she was.

"Kid ..." he whispered, as she pressed her cheek into his shoulder. "Kid, El ... don't. Just get out. Remember what I told you in the truck. I'm a black hole. I'll destroy everything. I'll destroy you."

"No," she said quietly, and with so much conviction that he had to turn his head to look at her, at those intent eyes peering up at him. "I'm too strong. You can't destroy me."

He had to turn his head away from the intensity of her gaze. "You're not supposed to have to be strong. You're a kid. You -- other people are strong _for_ you, it's how it's supposed to work --"

"I'm not strong always," she said. "We can take turns."

Her fingers closed around his, laced through them, like they had in the truck, like they had in the elevator on that long, terrible trip down.

He closed his eyes.

And then he got up, slowly, one bit of the wall at a time.

She clung to him as he did, helping him up while wobbling a little herself, and then leaned on him for awhile, pressing into his side while he put his arm around her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

And then they walked out of that goddamn death building, smelling like smoke, into the light of a bright new dawn.


End file.
